The official start of summer is nearly here, and that signals the season for crisp, refreshing ros wines. Choices have expanded in recent years, with numerous wines from California, the rest of the country and abroad.

It seems that wine drinkers finally have gotten past the notion that all pink wines are cloyingly sweet, a hangover from the past popularity of white zinfandel and other “blush” wines. Many of today”s crop of ross are dry or nearly dry, with plenty of juicy fruit and a refreshing streak of bright acidity.

Unlike ros sparkling wines, which are often a blend of white and red wines, most high-quality dry ros table wines are made from red grapes. After the grapes are harvested and brought to the winery, the juice gets only limited contact with the skins, which is where the color is. Ros wines can range from very pale to a deeper rosy hue.

A lot of domestic ross used to be essentially a byproduct of red wine production. A portion of the juice was bled off from a tank of red grapes, so the juice that remained got more skin contact and, thus, more color, concentration and tannin. The pale, bled-off juice was made into ros. The winemaker often used quite ripe grapes, with high sugar levels. The resulting alcohol level might work in the red but often was too aggressive in the pink wine. Some ross still are made this way, but such wines can be clumsy and overly alcoholic.

A lot of today”s ross are what you might call “intentional ross” — made from grapes picked expressly for that purpose, when the sugars are lower and the acidity is higher. Some wines are a combination of grapes picked for ros and small lots that have been bled off the red wine. For example, Tablas Creek Vineyard uses that combined approach in its Patelin de Tablas Ros and Dianthus.

Dry ros can be made from any red grape, but in California, pinot noir and Rhone grapes seem to be the most popular. (Perhaps ros is a good outlet for some of that unsold syrah, which is in a well-publicized slump.)

Among ross made from pinot noir, for example, there”s the 2014 Calera Vin Gris of Pinot Noir ($19), which is racy and fresh, with raspberry and lemon notes, or the 2014 Charles Heintz Ros of Pinot Noir ($19), which displays bright cranberry and wild strawberry flavors. The 2014 MacPhail Ros of Pinot Noir ($22) is a little more robust and structured, with cherry and raspberry accented by a note of wild herbs.

As for ros made from Rhone grape varieties, there are the aforementioned 2014 Tablas Creek Patelin de Tablas Ros ($20), which is mostly grenache and has zippy strawberry and cranberry flavors, and the 2014 Tablas Creek Dianthus Ros ($27), which is mostly mourvedre and grenache, and has some underlying weight and richness to go along with its higher price. The 2014 Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare ($18) offers delicate strawberry and mineral notes. The wine is a blend of Rhone grapes, but the twist is that white grapes account for 30 percent of the blend.

Pink wines made from Rhone grapes are also popular in Washington state. Two examples are the 2014 Syncline Ros ($17), a blend of mourvedre, cinsault and grenache that displays fresh raspberry fruit and a lot of minerality, and the more exuberantly fruity 2014 Charles & Charles Ros ($12), which is mostly syrah.

I just hope that ros doesn”t become a victim of its own success, as so often happens. You know the pattern – pinot noir, for example, becomes wildly successful, so everyone suddenly is producing pinot noir, and a lot of it ends up tasting pretty dreadful. I”m starting to see more wines masquerading as dry to off-dry ros, with descriptors such as “crisp” and “refreshing” on the back label, when the wine is, in fact, cloying and generic.

Most ros wine is at its best when it”s still young and fresh. I recently tasted a 2012 from New York”s Long Island that wasn”t bad, but it had lost whatever charm it once had. For the most part, I recommend sticking to 2014, maybe 2013.

Since any red grape can be used for ros, you also find dry to off-dry wines made from cabernet, sangiovese and, yes, zinfandel. On the zin front, there”s the 2014 Pedroncelli Dry Ros of Zinfandel ($12), which has pretty cherry and cranberry fruit and a slight note of Jolly Rancher watermelon candy. The 2014 Justin Ros ($20) is made from cabernet sauvignon; it”s bright and easy, with cherry and strawberry flavors and a soft finish.Cabernet franc is the grape used in the 2014 Ehlers Estate “Sylviane” Ros ($28), a more structured, serious ros with bright cherry and slight leafy note.From Washington state, the 2014 Milbrandt “Traditions” Ros ($13), a blend of syrah and sangiovese, is racy and bright, with raspberry, cranberry and a dash of lemon. One of my favorite Washington ross is the Barnard Griffin Ros of Sangiovese, although I haven”t tasted the current vintage (2014).